It is February ALREADY???

Bonjour bonjour!!!

Oh my goodness, I can't believe that it is FEBRUARY already, I feel like I just got here and if it is already February and I come home in May, ahhhhhhhh, that is TOO soon! I don't feel like I just got here in the since of being "new" (I am getting into a good groove!) but I am just love it SO much and time is passing by too quickly!!!

Let's see, I will give the highlights of this week:

MONDAY: I made banana bread for my family...I am not sure what they thought of it, there wasn't much said, but it did disappear. I enjoyed it at least! :)

TUESDAY: I LOVE my class on the Middle East/US/France relations since WWII and the professor is amazing and I have that class twice, for two hours (total of 4 hours) on Tuesdays! Then, we had conversation club (45 minutes of speaking in French then 45 minutes of speaking in English) with French students and that was fun. THEN, I went out to INDIAN food for dinner and it tasted SO good. I went out with two friends from IES and LEA, my new wonderful friend! I had spinach curry and salmon and you wouldn't believe how good Indian food tasted in France!

WEDNESDAY: This is my day to relax...I don't have class until 4pm! And since it was raining, I slept in (I am ALWAYS tired here...thinking in a different language really wears you out and thus I need way more sleep than in the US) and lay in bed reading HP! I finished Harry Potter in French and understood pretty much everything, which was a feat! Then, after classes and dinner with my host family on Wednesday I went to Lea's house. Her family is SO nice and welcoming and her apartment is warm, cozy, and chic. She showed me some of her photos and we chatted about life...in French, of course!

THURSDAY: WOW, this was a DAY! It was a national strike and it was CRAZY! The transport didn't work, our university classes were cancelled (which meant my tennis class was cancelled and I was bummed) but it was QUITE a French experience! EVERYONE was in the streets demonstrating. I don't think most of them actually PASSIONATELY belived in the cause (which was very general, angry at the economic crisis) but it was a reason to drink and be routy! It was quite a sight and made it a bit difficult to get to the IES center. BUT, I had to get to the center because we had elections. And, after speeches, I won the PRESIDENCY for the IES center (the group of us 60 American students!). So, I get to plan fun parties and address the concerns of the students and work with the administration. Also, my first order of business (I had a meeting on Friday with the head) was to create a recycling program for IES because NO ONE in France recycles and it has really been bothering some of us! So, from now on you can call me "Madame President!" Je blague (I am kidding...)

FRIDAY: After classes I had my first presidential meeting. Then, my friend Andrea invited me to coffee with the native speaker from her school Bowdoin who now lives in Nantes. We were a little disappointed because she wanted to practice her English on us! We wanted to speak French with her...Then, Friday night Andrea came to my house and we had bought STRAWBERRIES, GRAPES, DARK CHOCOLATE, and RED WINE and I borrowed Amelie from Lea and we had a very cozy and wonderful girls night in. I had never seen Amelie and I am in LOVE. It is an AMAZING film! We watched it in French (duh!) with French subtitles and I was quite proud of myself because I actually understood it all. Then, we started "Mean Girls" dubbed in French that Lea loaned me. It is called "Lolita Malgre Moi" in French, and it is really funny to hear Lindsay Lohan dubbed...

SATURDAY: I went to the open air market and again, spent TWO lovely hours there tasting everything and deciding what to buy. I bought SO much yumminess at SUCH a good price: 15 Braeburn apples for TWO euro, clemintines, grapes, tomotoes from Morocco, onions, lettuce (which was actually hard to find), carrots, pears, and a pineapple. YUM! Then, Saturday afternoon I finished my SECOND novel IN FRENCH. We were required to choose one for our French grammar class and I started and finished this really good French novel in TWO days (15o pages of French!) I was quite proud of myself. Then, at 5pm I met Lea at her photo studio and got to see where she worked. Then, we walked back to her house (she lives right in the center, SO lucky, she walks everywhere) and I had made a salad with my French veggies and I had a LOVELY two hour dinner with her family. Her mom made apple "crumble" (they use our English word) for dessert. Her parents are the nicest people, so so so so welcoming and so helpful with my French too! Then, Lea took me on the town: we went to two different bar/night club places. The second was called "La Maison" which means the house. It is decorated like a house and there are different rooms: the salon, the kitchen, the bedroom, ect, all with furniture that correspond. I didn't return home until 1am, and I was pooped!

SUNDAY: Today, I was lucky enough to go to the "Folles Journees." It is this HUGE classical music festival in Nantes that attracts people from EVERYWHERE! The IES center gave us each one free ticket and so I got to go to a violin and piano concert of Bach and Brahms. It was lovely. Then, Lea met me after the concert and we went to the Musee of Beaux Arts (the art museum) and viewed some Monet, Picasso, and Kandisky, amongst others. Then we walked in the sunny cold through the "Jardin de Plantes" and throughout the city of Nantes (nothing is open on Sundays though...except the cinema!) and returned to her apartment. Then, her parents and her helped correct my English-French assignment for my translation class. It was a group effort and they were SO kind and patient with me...and are going to help me again! Tonight, in a couple of minutes is CREPE night again, like every Sunday!